This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every persons position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the FAQ and RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate and remove the ads - it's free!

Re: Powerful 'Flame' cyber weapon found in Iran

I'm not a cyber security expert, but one of my CS courses taught us that no computer system can ever be 100% secure. The best you can do is obfuscate things so much (encryption, multiple gateways, etc.) that it *should* in practice be impossible for a hacker to reverse engineer their way in because of the complexity. But in theory if there's a front door (to allow for legitimate operations), it can always be exploited to create a back door.

Re: Powerful 'Flame' cyber weapon found in Iran

I find the article highly misleading, particularly the title. They make it sound like Iran has some super weapon ready to strike, particularly for those who know little about computers, when in fact they have been struck with the super weapon themselves.

Re: Powerful 'Flame' cyber weapon found in Iran

Originally Posted by vendur

I find the article highly misleading, particularly the title. They make it sound like Iran has some super weapon ready to strike, particularly for those who know little about computers, when in fact they have been struck with the super weapon themselves.

Re: Powerful 'Flame' cyber weapon found in Iran

Originally Posted by cpwill

I would argue that it is 'now'. As the world integrates and everything is digitized and then networked, this is warfare of the future. It doesn't matter if the enemy has an excellent IAD's network if you can broadcast a signal that causes every piece of hardware to fry itself.

I agree. This cyberwarfare stuff is fascinating and it seems like we're just starting to brush the surface of what's capable.

Re: Powerful 'Flame' cyber weapon found in Iran

No one is 100% secure. The thing is, software can be written by anyone, ANYONE, with a computer, and about 500 bucks worth of software. Give one clever person 10 years, and they will craft a program that no one has seen before, with subsets and modules that are simply not predictable, and therefor, impossible to be scanned for. Me saying I run Linux, is a paper tiger. If everyone ran linux, guess what? People would write malware for linux. Windows happens to be the OS of choice, and therefor, is the target of all these aggressive programs.

This is why we still use a paper ballet, why ATMS still offer printable receipts, and why, ultimately, if you truly want to be secure, you keep it in a file cabinet, and not a file on a computer.

Originally Posted by calamity

Reports indicate that everyone knew he was hauling a bunch of guns up there. But, since you brought it up, there's something which should be illegal: guns that breakdown.

Re: Powerful 'Flame' cyber weapon found in Iran

Originally Posted by Binary_Digit

I'm not a cyber security expert, but one of my CS courses taught us that no computer system can ever be 100% secure. The best you can do is obfuscate things so much (encryption, multiple gateways, etc.) that it *should* in practice be impossible for a hacker to reverse engineer their way in because of the complexity. But in theory if there's a front door (to allow for legitimate operations), it can always be exploited to create a back door.

Really? I thought systems were secure but were unsecure mainly because of human error and design flaws which could be exploited, but that a properly designed system should be secure at least in theory.

Re: Powerful 'Flame' cyber weapon found in Iran

Originally Posted by Opteron

Really? I thought systems were secure but were unsecure mainly because of human error and design flaws which could be exploited, but that a properly designed system should be secure at least in theory.

No. Any system that is receiving information from the internet, or any other source, for that matter, is susceptible to attack. You are taking information from a host, every time you view a webpage, or text, that did not originate from YOUR computer. So, anything, ANYTHING, could come along with that information you are taking. Commonly refered to as "tape". You stick something else onto something you know others are going to download...and voila, virus/worm spread. Most viruses are simple, just a bit of code designating a very specific set of actions dependent on corresponding conditions...most notably, conditions preset by the desired operating system. In other words, windows OS systems do certain things, so you write a virus to activate when those certain things are done, and you write that virus to then do certain things, like copy itself into other known windows folders, etc. We call them viruses because, like a biological virus, they are "evolved" to only target one specific thing, like mammals, or...windows operating systems.

Originally Posted by calamity

Reports indicate that everyone knew he was hauling a bunch of guns up there. But, since you brought it up, there's something which should be illegal: guns that breakdown.